Notices by Richard Stallman (rms@mastodon.xyz)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/17/the-new-world-order-is-exactly-what-it-looks-like-are-we-too-frozen-with-fear-to-name-itk

Rejecting the superstition that if we refuse to call it "fascism" that will somehow restrain the regime from going all the way there.

https://act.demandprogress.org/sign/protect-cfpb-musk-attacks/?t=1003
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#musk

US citizens: call on Congress to protect the CFPB from sabotage by the muskrat's dog(e)s.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/17/a-great-shock-julianne-moores-childrens-book-under-review-by-trump-administration

The right-wing-controlled Pentagon is imposing right-wing censorship on the libraries of the schools for military personnel.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/17/trump-musk-government-cost-cutting-coup

*In slashing staff and disabling entire agencies the administration is lacerating the structures of US democracy.*

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/16/2304113/-I-am-a-Jew-Who-Won-t-Visit-Israel?_=2025-02-16T07:08:58.000-08:00

Alan Singer describes the history over time of his relationship with Israel, developing from intense support to moral reproach.

[3/4] European governments must ensure their weapons production does not depend significantly on US industry. They could be cut off by sanctions at any time. Europe must cease buying US weapons systems that depend on US spare parts, US maintenance, or software that Europe cannot maintain and change. NATO no longer makes sense with the US as a member, so perhaps the other members of NATO should construct a new alliance without the US. That could be a framework to facilitate joint defense of

[4/4] Greenland, for instance. With luck, that would deter the wrecker from actually invading Greenland.

[2/4] attack crucial human rights, and to promote his allies in Europe - European far-right extremists-Nazis - and encourage them to seize repressive power there as the Trusk regime is doing in the US. European anti-Nazis need to be bold, not hesitate and rely on measures that aim only to oppose them. Since the US appreciates Putin more than Europe, and is as likely to behave like Europe's enemy than like Europe's friend, Europe urgently needs to re-arm. The lesson from this is that

[1/4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/jd-vance-decried-as-extremist-over-attack-on-uk-abortion-clinic-safe-zones
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/jd-vance-munich-speech-laid-bare-collapse-transatlantic-alliance-us-europe
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/16/europeans-are-right-to-be-angry-with-donald-trump-but-they-should-also-be-furious-with-themselves
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#wrecker

Vance distorted edge-cases of European laws to

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/facebook-admits-that-the-linux-topic-crackdown-was-in-error-and-has-been-fixed

Facebook says that blocking posts about Linux or "Linux" was an unintentional error.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/17/donald-trump-us-corruption-kleptocracy-britain-corruption-law-oligarchs
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#corrupter

For decades the US has been systematically trying to curb global corruption, but the corrupter has eliminated many of the programs that contributed to the campaign. It looks like the US government has flipped to the pro-corruption side.

[2/2] mistakes in its haste. But usually they don't care, and say nothing. What is newsworthy this time is that they care enough to try to undo it.

[1/2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/15/trump-administration-nuclear-arsenal-worker-firings
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#wrecker

The wrecker's agents fired some of the workers that maintain security for US nuclear weapons. Then it realized that this was stupid, but it can't figure out how to reach them to offer them their jobs back. If you do things without careful thought, you are likely to make mistakes. I am sure the wrecker's destruction workers have made many

[4/4] goal also should not be neglected -- hence this note to criticize the article's own bigotry.

[3/4] one.) I denounce lesser forms of bigotry too, and I don't want to normalize symbolic bigotry by letting it pass without calling it out. Normally I avoid any mention of articles that practice it. I had conflicting feelings about that article based on these two valid goals: to make a link, because of its important point about racism, or not to link, to avoid normalizing the article's own bigotry. I concluded that the first goal could not be neglected, and made the link. But the second

[2/4] US government will abandon the goal as well as the means. I made the above link to an article because it tells us something important about racism. Racism is an intense form of bigotry; it is a collective injustice that I condemn, and support the campaign against. I think posting a link to that article will help that campaign. Ironically, that article itself embodies symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid this bigotry, capitalize both words or neither

[1/4] https://www.propublica.org/article/department-of-education-civil-rights-office-investigations?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#wrecker

The Department of Education used to be responsible for enforcing accessibility requirements for US schools, as to ensure disabled students could attend school. Now it has more or less stopped doing this. The wrecker wants to eliminate the Department of Education, so we must expect the

https://join.theintercept.com/go/79566
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#thug

The US government plans to scan the internet for postings that express hostility to the deportation thugs, then search high and low for all information it can get about the person who posted them. We cannot at this point expect that this search will confine itself to legal methods.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/16/donald-trump-us-senate
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#corrupter

*By voting in favor of nominees they knew should never be approved, Republican senators became [the corrupter's] subjects.*

[2/2] someone an interview is not a threat to per freedom to work, because I am not so important or influential that anyone would imagine perse could not do without it.